Tuesday, October 22, 2013

... Still, one wonders: why has the Obama/Holder administration seen a tripling in attempted mass murders, even as the overall homicide rate has continued to decline? It might be coincidence. But it also may be that the hysterical publicity given to each such incident has encouraged others. During the last few years, the Democratic Party news media have enthusiastically promoted stories about "shooters," hoping to aid the Obama administration in its gun control initiatives.

Oh, right -- and civil rights activists throughout the first half of the twentieth century "enthusiastically promoted stories" about lynchings out of a sinister desire to score political victories by passing civil rights laws, not out of a sense of outrage at brutality. Yup, got it. Oh, and I love the way Hindrocket puts "shooters" in scare quotes, because, y'know, shooting firearms is a sacrament, and it's sacrilege to refer to people who commit mass murder with guns as "shooters," even if calling them that is a simple and non-controversial statement of fact.

That effort has been unsuccessful, but it may have had the unintended effect of encouraging other unstable individuals to seek the same sort of immortality that the Democratic media have conferred on, for example, Adam Lanza -- a murderer who himself was clearly inspired by the fame that had been accorded his predecessors and idols. Perhaps next time Eric Holder gives a speech about the anomalous increase in incidents of attempted mass murder, he should look in the mirror.

If anyone is "encouraging ... unstable individuals" to pick up guns, it's the gun lobby, which relentlessly tells the gun community and the rest of America that firearm use is the source of the rarest bliss in the human experience, is deeply nourishing to the soul and moral character, and is critically necessary for the proper functioning of society. If I were a clinical paranoid, I'm pretty sure that message would persuade me that my decision to shoot up a middle school made me one of the people whose firearm use was going to put the world back on its proper course, and that any enjoyment I had throughout the course of my massacre was good clean fun. I'd think that the "bad person with a gun" was the other guy. I'd think I was the good person with a gun.

It's absurdly easy for a crazy or otherwise deranged person to get a gun in this country -- but it's also absurdly easy for a crazed person with a gun to get the message that being angry and armed is a wonderful thing. You look in the mirror, Hindrocket.